PROCEEDINGS - Industries of the Future - West Virginia - West ...

Industries of the Future — West Virginia
Fortunately, by the third meeting an article by A.D. Little came across my desk. A.D. Little had a
strategic planning session with the three big U.S. auto companies, Ford, Chrysler, and GM. Basically,
it was to ask how people are going to order cars and what are your customers going to demand in the
future. What the auto companies said was that by the year 2004, which is right around the corner,
there may be no auto showrooms. They could see that people are going to order cars in a virtual
reality environment. Instead of being asked which model they want, they're going to design the car they
want! Now, what do you think that means for just-in-time delivery? What do you think that means to
walking away from large inventories of generic products? As I communicated that story with the
leaders of the metal casting industry, they saw how it would make a big difference in the way they do
business. Auto companies are 40% of their market, and if they can't deliver to them, then the plastics
folks or the aluminum companies or someone else certainly will. The metal casting folks decided that in
their vision they really needed to reduce their lead time by at least one half. When they got to their
roadmapping session, they looked at it again and thought about what the demands would be from the
auto industry and from the aerospace industry. They decided that they had to do twice as good and
that's what they charted out in their road maps.
So, it's very important not only to deal with what your day-to-day problems are, but to listen to
what your customers are going to want 20 years from now. They will share it with you. I think it's
absolutely key to be strategic and to set targets. It is critical if you are going to pull a mass of people
together in a force to change the future. You have to be strategic, and you have to set targets that are
measurable so that you know when you're making advances. You also have to be an active, willing
participant in revisiting your vision and revisiting your road maps on a regular basis. The key to that is
state leaders as you, Governor Underwood, and you, Tom Burns; university leaders, President
Hardesty, Carl; and CEO's and presidents of companies are the ones who make these ultimate
decisions on the future.
The portfolios of projects will continue to change as the industry groups continue to develop
their technical road maps. But, what is important about it is that it is a portfolio of near, mid and longterm
investments. I want to mention an example in the materials area.
Techtron Company has produced immersible tubes made with continuous fiber carbon
composites developed through our materials program. The tubes were used in an aluminum melting
furnace. The interesting thing is that because the material radiates the heat so efficiently, the gas
consumption for that furnace went down 30 percent as soon as the burner was installed.
Then there are long term things. John has shared with you and I'm sure the aluminum group
talked about new methods of making aluminum. We’re investing in new inert anodes and new cathodes
to eliminate production of CO 2 during aluminum production.
We have technical assistance programs, such as the Motor Challenge program. Alumax
thought that they were going to have to make a large investment in variable speed drives. It's not the
technology itself that was important, it was that they thought a major investment in their air handling
system was necessary to reduce operating costs. We went in and helped them do an analysis of the
performance and the efficiency of their existing fan system for air handling. Together, we discovered
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